The early 1990s saw a short-lived “clear product” trend, built on the idea that removing color signaled purity and modernity. Two of its most famous examples — Crystal Pepsi and Coors’ Zima — both launched with major marketing pushes and strong initial curiosity, and both faded within a few years.
Crystal Pepsi: strong launch, no staying power
Crystal Pepsi launched nationally in 1993 backed by a Super Bowl ad and heavy promotion. Early sales were strong, driven largely by curiosity. But the product’s taste didn’t clearly justify the novelty once the initial trial wave passed, and sales declined sharply within about a year, leading to discontinuation by 1994.
Zima: a fad, not a franchise
Coors’ Zima, a clear malt beverage launched in 1993, followed a similar arc — heavy marketing spend, a wave of trial purchases, and a steep falloff once the novelty wore off. It lingered in niche popularity for years afterward but never recovered its launch-year momentum, and Coors discontinued it in the U.S. in 2008.
The shared lesson
- Novelty drives trial, not retention — a product needs a reason for customers to come back beyond “it’s different.”
- A strong launch built on curiosity can mask a weak underlying value proposition for a year or more before the numbers catch up.
- Chasing a broad cultural trend (“clear is modern”) is a weaker foundation than solving a specific, durable customer need.
Why it’s worth remembering
Both products are frequently cited together because they show the same failure pattern from two different companies at the same cultural moment — a useful reminder that a trend-driven launch needs a real product reason to survive past its first year.